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It was the first week after Yule break and the Slytherins were bored.
"I'm bored," said Draco, who was sprawled on a chair inside the boys dormitories.
"Me too," agreed Pansy, who also was in the boys dormitories.
Blaise and Theo distractedly hummed in agreement, from where they were playing Exploding Snap for the 34th consecutive time.
Vince and Greg, who unfortunately also shared the dorm with them, ignored the talking even harder than before. They each had a reading assignment due tomorrow and they had forgotten to read it until now, but they were determined to finish before then, even if they had to spend the whole night reading.
It was a matter of honor.
"We should do something," said Draco, staring at the ceiling.
"Like what?" Asked Blaise, half-heartedly throwing another card down at the table.
"We could fly?" Said Pansy with a light grimace. She didn't like flying at school, but she was that desperate.
Theo shot down the idea emphatically. He hated flying and he definitely wasn't that desperate.
Yet.
Pansy huffed. "It's not like we have much else to do. There's the pitch, there's the library, there's the lake and there's the forest."
They all sighed again.
Theo didn't want to fly, no one wanted to join Vince and Greg at reading, it was too cold for the lake and the forest was creepy.
"We could explore the castle," Blaise suggested.
"Boring," said the other three.
"Y'know," said Vince, who really wanted them to leave so he could read quietly, "if you want an adventure you can always go to the Third Floor and face certain death," he said sarcastically, from where he was sitting at his bed, hoping they would get a hint and sod off.
Theo, Draco, Pansy and Blaise hummed.
The room was quiet for a moment.
"Certain death? I mean, how certain? This is a school , right? There are small children here," said Draco distractedly, completely ignoring the fact that technically, they were the small children.
"I bet we totally could take it on," said Pansy, absent-mindedly.
"I mean, if the Headmaster really didn't want anyone there he could just have casted a notice-me-not or something," added Theo, throwing another card on the table.
A beat of silence.
"Let's go," said Draco, jumping up from his seat and making a mad dash to the dorms exit.
Pansy bolted towards the door in excitement. Blaise and Theo threw their cards haphazardly on the floor and followed Pansy and Draco hot on their heels in a flutter of robes, the four of them making it look like a hurricane had just made its way through the room.
They had been really bored.
Vince and Greg sighed in relief, finally being able to focus on their books.
(つ≧▽≦)つ
It was a couple hours after dinner, so they didn't have to worry about curfew yet. They prepared their best excuses for when Filch inevitably drilled them about what they were doing so close to the Third Floor.
Filch never drilled them, because Filch didn't catch them going there.
They prepared their best jinxes against Peeves for when he inevitably bothered them.
Peeves didn't show up.
They prepared their best innocent faces for when Snape’s sixth sense for his students shenanigans alerted him of someone doing something they shouldn’t and he inevitably intercepted them.
Snape never intercepted them.
Instead the Slytherins just… walked right up to the prohibited area without crossing paths with anyone.
Theo blinked at the corridor.
"This has to be the worst security ever."
Pansy huffed, disgusted, looking around her in search of traps or alarming spells. "What type of joke is this? I want to be dragged kicking and screaming and then charm my way out, not walk right up to the dangerous door like it’s nothing."
Draco nodded. He had the perfect speech prepared to talk whoever stopped them into circles.
"This is a disappointment," he said.
The four of them walked right up to the door.
Not a single ward or charm brushed against them.
Their shoulders slumped.
They looked at the door. Unfortunately, the door didn't look back. Now, that would have been interesting.
Pansy reached a hand out and gave a weak push on the wood.
The door didn't move. They all perked up.
"Hey, maybe this won't be boring after all!" Said Theo excitedly.
Blaise got closer, dozens of unlocking spells already floating around his head. This could be really fun, they all knew a handful of spells each since they were of very common use, especially in ancient family homes. Some were pretty cool and dramatic and he really wanted to try them.
He decided to start with the most basic one, and he could work his way up, or maybe they should just blast the whole door off, now that would be so cool--
" Alohomora ."
The door opened. On the first try. With the most basic unlocking spell ever.
The four of them looked at the door with dismay.
"This is ridiculous. The dorms were more interesting than this," said Draco.
They all made agreeing sounds but no one turned around to head back.
They still held hope. Maybe behind the door they would find what certain death meant. Maybe a curse, or a ward, or a dragon, or an eraged Snape…
ಠ_ಠ
… a dog. There was a dog.
"A dog," said Pansy blankly.
"A Cerberus," corrected Theo, with a faintly interested tone.
"A puppy."
Everyone turned to stare at Blaise, who had a completely serious look on his face.
They all nodded. Once a puppy, always a puppy.
Everyone turned to the heads again when they heard one of them sniffing.
"That is a very big puppy," said Draco with the same type of voice one might use to talk about the weather.
The sniffing head opened its eyes and started growling at them.
"His breath kinda stinks tough," commented Pansy with the same tone of voice, "I wonder what they feed him." A beat. "Them. I wonder what they feed them."
They stared as the other heads woke up. A horse, maybe? Or did the school have to buy tons of dog food every month? Was that where the tuition money went?
“But does it count as one puppy, or as three puppies?” Draco inquired. Everyone looked at the Cerberus consideringly. That was actually a very good question.
The three heads started growling.
Pansy gave a sharp whistle. Her family was known for their hound dogs, and she had been part of more than one training session growing up.
The heads stopped, confused.
She whistled again and pointed at the corner of the room.
The dogs stared at her.
She whistled again, pointing sharply to the corner.
The dogs whimpered and moved to where she pointed.
They clearly were smart enough to know better than to piss Pansy off. Theo, Draco and Blaise could respect that type of self preservation.
Under where the dog (dogs?) once stood, they could all see a trapdoor.
Draco kicked it a little and the door moved. Their shoulders slumped. This time, not even a measly locking charm in place for them to blow up.
They pulled the door up dejectedly.
▼・ᴥ・▼
Under the trapdoor, they were met with complete darkness.
They perked up.
"What do you think there is down there?" Asked Theo.
"Ooo! Maybe giant spiders or something!" Said Pansy, sounding more excited at the prospect than any sane person should.
"Maybe it's a trap, and as soon as we light it up, a ward will flare and arrows will fly out!" Said Draco, gleefully.
"Flaming arrows!" Added Theo, already imagining it. It would be so amazing! Oh no Professor, the burns and tears on the robes are from a competitive match of Quidditch. A very competitive match. Don't worry about it.
"Do it!" Said Pansy, ready to close the trapdoor at any second to protect them against possible flying projectiles.
Draco leaned over the door and pointed his wand down.
" Lumos !"
A bright flash of light shot from his wand, illuminating the way down.
And down, and down…
They held their breath in anticipation. Any second now!
…
Now!
…
… now?
Yeah, nope.
Nothing happened.
They all groaned.
"This is so unfair! Is it too much to ask for a dramatic, flashy death trap? Is it?" Moaned Pansy.
"I can't believe this! I even brushed up on the stunning spells my mother taught me, and for what?" Exclaimed Blaise while Draco nodded in agreement.
"This is so ridiculous. I bet that Dumbledore is just using this certain death thing as a way to guard a pile of sweets. Five galleons that in the end we will find a mountain of Lemon Drops," added an angry Theo.
"Maybe he keeps a secret stash of Chocolate Frogs hoarded down there. I bet he stole all the different cards and that's why we can only get his face every time," imputed Draco with narrowed eyes.
They all thought about it for a second.
It had been increasingly hard to get a card that wasn't the Headmaster.
Actually, now that they thought about it, all their rare cards had been acquired right at the beginning of the production, being almost impossible to get anything other than Dumbledore nowadays.
"Son of a…" said Blaise with wide eyes of realisation on his face.
"I want to say that the idea is ridiculous, but it's so something that he would do." Said Theo, looking at the wall with a fareway look of someone who had all their beliefs crumble from under their feet.
"That git," whispered Pansy. " Now we definitely have to see this through!" Everyone nodded in agreement.
"How should we do this?"
"I will just float you guys down, then you do the same to me," said Draco.
Blaise went first. Draco cast Wingardium Leviosa on him and slowly started to lower him down the passage. Halfway down the drop, Blaise cast a Lumos so he could see what was awaiting for them down there. Maybe the pile of Chocolate Frogs? Or maybe just a pile with the cards? Honestly, he would prefer a death trap, but at this point he was accepting anything.
He squinted and…
A plant.
That definitely hadn't been what he meant by anything.
"There's some Devil's Snare down here!" He screamed up to his friends. As soon as he got close enough, the Lumos from his wand made the Snare coil back. He landed with a small thump.
"Really?" Yelled Theo back. "Makes sense, they like dark spaces."
"You would think they would take better care of this place instead of letting a plant infestation happen," scoffed Pansy. They had to really be spending all the school money feeding the dog if they dropped the grounds maintenance like this.
Draco hesitated for a second before asking, "You don't think this was supposed to be part of the whole certain death thing, right?"
They contemplated the question for a second.
"Nah," the four of them said at the same time.
"That would be way too stupid. If they wanted to use plants, they would have gone for something more sturdy. This is probably just an infestation like Pansy said," voiced Theo.
Draco then lowered Pansy and Theo down the same way, and Blaise did the same for him while Pansy held a Lumos to keep the Snare at bay.
Once the four of them were down, they looked at the only passageway there was: a stone corridor.
Draco sighed.
"Seriously? Couldn't it at least be a maze or something? It had to be a straight passage?"
"Maybe now there will be flaming arrows?" Asked Theo, but at this point, no one was really holding any hope anymore.
They started walking forwards.
(✿ ಠ_ಠ)━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ
To no one's surprise, no flaming arrows were shot at them.
When the passageway started sloping downward, everyone readied their wands in excitement, ready for when the floor started to crumble under their feet and they had to make a mad dash for it or risk falling in boiling lava, but that never happened.
Really, Dumbledore was so uncreative. Maybe the four of them should send the Headmaster an anonymous critique letter about his security methods.
Soon, they started to hear a soft rustling and clicking noise.
"I really want that to be a horde of venoumns dragons waiting for us, ready to spit acid at our face, but at this point I wouldn't be surprised if it was something ridiculous, like, I don't know, a bunch of winged rocks," said Pansy drily.
"I doubt it," added Draco sullenly. "With rocks there would at least be the prospect of them being thrown against us. It's probably a bunch of butterflies and the security bit is them flying in front of our eyes so we can't see the next door, or something as stupid."
It wasn't butterflies nor flying rocks, but what they saw wasn't much better.
"Keys," said Blaise with a deadpan face. "My worst nightmare."
They looked at the door across the room.
"However built this probably wanted us to find the right key, but honestly, I'm still pissed about the first door opening with an Alohomora . Maybe we should just blow this one as compensation," mused Theo.
"I mean, it's not like we can't just use Reparo after," agreed Draco.
"And maybe with luck, it will make the keys attack us, which would be the most exciting thing to happen until now." Pansy blinked. "I can't believe there's a context in which that phrase makes sense."
They all walked right up to the door.
The keys didn't attack them.
They used the unlocking charm, and braced themselves.
The door didn't open. The keys didn't even acknowledge their existence.
They hurled a basic concussive spell at the door. It didn't even twitch at the hinges.
The keys didn't bother to shift closer to them.
Pansy and Blaise groaned. Draco whined, buring one hand in his hair and tugging a little in frustration. Theo buried his head in his hands to muffle a dismayed scream.
"Screw this," said Blaise, thoroughly annoyed.
The four of them surrounded the door and started taking their frustration out on the wood.
They skipped right over all the unlocking charms they knew and jumped right to the explosions. All of them were very irritated. They had come looking for something to end their boredom and this place hadn't the decency to try and entertain them.
The heavy wood door didn't extend a chance against the slaughter of spells of four pissed off Slytherins.
The wood splintered and the door was blown out of its hinges.
The keys twitched minutely, looking very confused at this turn of events.
"There better be a very large pile of sweets at the end of this or I might just blow up this school in a rage fist," said Theo darkly.
Pansy was looking murderous. The door giving out had only made them even angrier. How dare it not even put up a fight? Not even one rebound ward on it? Their bedrooms in their own family houses were harder to enter than this.
"Forget the sweets," said the girl. "If we don't find the answer of every end of the year test from now until seventh year, or the secret to the spell Dumbledore uses to make his eyes twinkle so we can sell the answers to the highest binder I will set the Headmaster on fire. This is an insult against our capabilities as wizards!"
They stared furiously at the now open door.
Complete darkness greeted them.
"What is it with this place and dark rooms? People are aware that Lumos exists right?" Blaise said between gritted teeth.
"Let's just walk in blind this time. Maybe we can trip in a pair of stairs because at this point, that is the most excitement we are bound to have here."
They walked into the dark room, ready to fumble their way out of whatever disgrace was next.
(◣_◢╬)
Except, they couldn't have even that petty pleasure because as soon as they stepped inside the room lighted up.
Braise bited back an undignified whine while the other three didn't even bother with hiding it. They were quickly losing any fucks left to give.
The four studied the scene in front of them. The Slytherins were standing on the edge of a huge chessboard, behind the black chessmen, which were all taller than they were and carved from what looked like black stone. Facing them, way across the chamber, were the white pieces.
Theo cried out in despair. "Not this again!"
Before playing 34 rounds of Exploding Snap, he and Blaise had gone 18 rounds of chess.
Blaise looked two seconds away from crying. Draco, Pansy and Theo had never seen Blaise crying before.
Honestly, Draco wasn't much far behind. He started ranting instead, because apparently that was the only pleasure they would be able to drive out of this whole experience.
"Is this what Dumbledore's true security defense is about? Killing the trespasser by boredom? Driving them so deep in despair they turn around and flee before they can be driven insane by mind numbing tedious? Does this count as mental torture?"
"What kind of sick game is he playing here?" whispered Pansy. Did he even look up the meaning of death trap or did he just think the name was cool?
Blaise added on Pansy's line of thought. "How much can someone like Lemon Drops and coletionable cards? Does he have to go through this every single time he wants to eat something sugary or stare at a piece of magical cardboard?"
"I'm telling you guys, it has to be the eyes twinkle spell, nothing else makes sense," insisted Pansy.
"Hey."
They all turned towards Draco's voice. He was standing by the lateral wall, at the edge of the board.
"Pretty sure we can just walk across from here," he said, pointing down.
The other three walked closer and, sure enough, in the place the board was supposed to meet the wall there was a sliver of the ground showing.
It was too small for adult feet to cross, sure, but they were eleven.
Draco stepped on the space. It was a tight fit, but they would all be able to step there.
They turned and looked at the pieces, to see if they had a problem with it.
The pieces didn't have a problem with it. Actually, if they had been enchanted to show feelings they would have shown relief that they weren't about to be blown apart, but since they hadn't been spelled to do that, they just remained impassive.
The Slytherins started walking to the other side.
Theo shook his head. He really hadn't wanted to play chess, but…
"This is just bad planning. Everyone knows that the chessboard is a perfect square. Couldn't they find a single room that fit that criteria? What's the point of leaving a free space like this?" He complained.
Pansy just shook her head. This whole thing was very frustrating.
Everyone arrived at the other side. As soon as they stepped on the floor, the door swung open.
Everyone shot the door angry looks.
This was pitiful. Draco kicked the door before they entered.
(눈‸눈)
When they crossed the threshold, four sets of gasps happened at the same time.
"Finally," whispered Theo, gripping his hand in excitement.
" Yes!" Hissed Pansy with a maniac look and sharp grin.
Draco and Blaise let out low dangerous chuckles as a dangerous smile formed on their face.
This is what they had wanted.
The troll on the opposite side of the room screamed a rumble like sound, gearing up to kill them. The Slytherins crackled in happiness.
Five minutes later, the troll was down.
Theo, Draco, Pansy and Blaise were jumping around the place, yelling excited at their victory with the same level of energy one would get at a sugar high.
"More!" Screamed Pansy, both arms up towards the ceiling.
"Another!" Demanded Theo, in agreement with Pansy.
They all waited, giggling.
There wasn't more.
Everyone waited, blinking confusedly. Pansy dropped her arms, looking around her for any signals of something happening in the room.
"Wait," said Draco, turning around in place, "that was it?"
"The only real defense of this place," said Blaise slowly, trying to make sense of what was happening, "was a lonely troll."
He mulled over the sentence.
… nope, still didn't make sense.
Pansy looked hopefully at the next door.
"Maybe now the fun stuff will start! I bet next will be dragons!"
Draco's eyes were shining. "Maybe a wyvern! Better yet, ten wyverns! A whole nest of them!"
"Lava pit!" Exclaimed Theo, throwing both arms up.
"An army of skeletons!" Said Blaise, rubbing his hands together.
Three sets of incredulous eyes were aimed at him.
"What?" He said, defensively. "It could happen!"
They had just gone through flying keys and a badly constructed chessboard. It really could just happen.
"Fair," choired the other three.
The Slytherins turned to the door and Theo put his hand against the wood, pushing it open.
Maybe they had talked too soon, maybe this place could be exciting. The other stuff had probably only been there to drive other people out while the real fun stuff awaited here, for people who didn't give up!
They finally found the cure to their boredom! The next challenge would be grande! Exciting! Adventurous!
✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧
(•‿•)
(◉‿◉)
(●__●)
A table.
There was. A table.
Everyone looked around, looking for traps, or dragons, or wyverns, or lava, or skeletons or flaming arrows.
There was nothing.
Only a table and bottles.
What.
" What ," said Blaise, without any inflexion whatsoever on his voice.
They stepped over the threshold. Immediately purple fire sprang up behind
them in the doorway and black flames shot up in the doorway leading onward.
"Snape," the four of them said at the same time. This had the Professor’s teatrics tendencies written all over it.
They shivered, looking around the room as if expecting their Head of House to appear dramatically as if summoned.
"I knew his sixth sense would alert him of us being up to something," pouted Draco.
When nothing else happened, Pansy rolled her eyes, saying a small whatever. It was supposed to be defiant, but she said it low. No one wanted to sound too defiant and risk an angry Snape.
She got closer to the table and grabbed the piece of parchment rolled there between her thumb and forefinger, holding it far away from her body, with disgust and a healthy dose of fear of it springing to life and attacking her.
When that didn't happen, they all grouped around her to look at the paper, half expecting to see the professor's handwriting addressed to them with their names, surnames, a list of offenses and calling them idiots.
When they finished reading, Pansy and Draco flopped on the ground moaning.
"Homework! No! How did he do this? How did he know why we would be here? We are sneaking around to find adventure , not even more boredom ! He knew we wanted fun and did this on purpose!" Cried out Draco.
Pansy started right after him.
"Torture! This is torture! They made us think it would be fun behind the door and now this! I will sue them for physiological damage! Emotional torture!"
Blaise looked at the paper and them to the fire around them, contemplating just… dropping it. Accidentally. A slip of hand, really.
"It's the small bottle."
Everyone looked at Theo. His voice had been confident.
Blaise looked down and read the writing again. Then looked at the table.
"I mean, you are right, but how did you know?"
"Snape is an asshole. He probably got as mad as us as this laughable security, and decided to be as annoying as possible about it. So, if a group of people want to pass, they will have to wait for the bottle to replenish itself."
Blaise and Pansy looked a little impressed.
"Also," added Draco, "we saw him filling those three with leftover poison he was brewing in his private potion labs."
"Ah."
"Makes sense."
Theo stuck his tongue out at Draco, who laughed.
Pansy jumped from the floor. "Let's go then, I want to be done and over with this place."
Theo had been right. The bottle took a long time to replenish itself.
Snape pettiness was so predictable sometimes.
┐( ˘_˘)┌
They all got across the fire into the next room.
There was a mirror.
Pansy, Draco, Theo and Blaise ignored it and walked behind it to find the door to the next challenge.
There was no second door behind the mirror.
They all blinked.
"Is… is the mirror a fake door?" Asked Theo hesitantly. Surely this wasn't the end of it.
Everyone walked back to the front of the mirror and started examining the frame in search of a secret mechanism. Besides the writing carved on the top, they didn't find anything else.
"Was all of this… to protect a mirror?" Asked Draco incredulously.
"Are you kidding me?" Asked Pansy fumingly. She kicked the frame in anger. "They advertise it as a death trap and then there's only-" she groaned, too frustrated to end the sentence.
Blaise picked up where she left.
"A barely locked door, a puppy, an unlocked door, a drop, a weak door, a free passageway, another unlocked door, a solitary troll and Snape's homework"
"No sweets," added Theo with a heartbroken look. "No rare cards."
"No secret spells or test answers," added Pansy in despair.
"No dragons. No arrows. No skeletons." Concluded Blaise, looking like someone who had just lost all faith in humanity.
Draco kicked a loose piece of rock to the other end of the room, the clunking sound reverberating in the almost empty chamber.
Nothing came out to attack them.
They all stared at the room with eyes that showed how dead on the inside they were.
Draco sighed and took a step back from the mirror, absent-mindedly looking at his reflection.
"Maybe we should just head back, curfew will be soon," said Blaise, but he didn't move towards the exit.
Draco started to turn and look at them, but did a double take at his image.
"We could always stay here until curfew and sneak past Filch. That is probably more dangerous and exciting than whatever this all was," imputed Pansy.
"Guys," said Draco.
" Or ," said Theo, "we can just spend the night here. I doubt Filch patrol this… wherever this is."
Blaise got a contemplative look at that.
"We could set a door alight and make a bonfire."
Theo blinked at him. "Which door?"
Blaise looked at Theo with dark eyes, face as impassive as a marble statue. "All of them."
"Hey," said Draco, finally getting everyone's attention. "My reflection just shoved a rock on my pocket."
The other three looked at him like he had just spurted another head. They blinked. Draco blinked back.
"What?" Inquired Theo, completely lost. Maybe this whole thing really had caused psychological damage after all.
He just wasn't sure if the damage was on him or Draco.
"I'm serious," he said, shoving his hand on his pocket and fishing out a red stone.
Theo, Blaise and Pansy blinked at it.
Draco's story sounded ridiculous, but they knew he hadn't that in his pocket before, and this whole place was ridiculous anyway, what was one more thing on top of it all.
"Is that edible?" Asked Theo. Pansy slapped the back of his head and got closer to the stone.
"That doesn't look like any gem I know," said Pansy, examining it. Blaise and Draco agreed.
"So," Blaise started hesitantly, "is that the treasure or is it the mirror?"
Pansy grimaced.
"Does it really matter? Both are tacky and ugly."
"Hey!" Exclaimed Draco, pulling the stone closer to his chest. "It 's rustic!" He pouted.
Pansy gave him a look that read as really?
Theo let out an excited Ooo! sound.
"What if we put a fake rock on its place?" He asked cheerfully.
Draco was already nodding before he even finished talking. "Compensation for emotional trauma."
"Revenge for the embarrassing useless doors," agreed Blaise.
"Retribution for the offense against our magic prowess," imputed Pansy.
"Payback for the lack of arrows. And Chocolate Frogs," concluded Theo.
Pansy went to the back of the room and grabbed the rock Draco had kicked. She came back to the group, where Draco held the stone on his hand for her to look.
She studied it for a moment, tapping the point of her hand against her other hand. Finally, she nodded and with a spell transfigured the rock to look like the red stone.
Pansy compared the two of them. Once she deemed it satisfactory, she looked at her friends. "How do we put it back in the mirror?"
"You said it was put in your pocket right? Just put the fake inside there," hypothesized Theo.
Draco put the fake stone in his pocket. A second later, it was gone. He glanced at his reflection.
"Yup, it worked!"
The Slytherins snickered. It served them right, for the terrible let down after announcing it as certain death.
"Hey, since no one wants it, can I keep this thing?" Asked Draco, gesturing to the real stone.
Pansy still stood by her opinion of it being ugly, while Blaise just shrugged and Theo said yeah, sure.
"Nice," he said.
The four of them walked out of the room. They used reparo on the stuff they broke on their way out.
To no one's surprised but immense disappointment, they also weren't stopped on their way back.
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
"Hey guys," greeted Blaise to Vince and Greg when they got back inside the dorms room.
Greg shushed them. There was only half a page left.
Pansy dropped on a chair, while Blaise just flopped on his bed.
"Do you know what you are going to do with that yet?" Asked Theo, gesturing to the stone on Draco's hand.
Draco looked at the stone completely lost as to what to do with it.
"Done!" Exclaimed Greg, jumping up from his bed. In his excitement, his robe fluttered near Draco's headboard table, making a pile of his homework fall on the ground.
Draco’s face brightened. He gathered all his papers in a neat pile and dropped the stone on top.
"Ta-da!" He said, pointing at it with jazz hands.
Half a second later, Vince also jumped up from the bed on the other side of the desk. His robes did the same thing as Greg's, but this time, no paper fell down.
Vince blink at the red stone.
"Nice paperweight."
"Thank you!" He said cheerfully, sending a pointed look at Pansy.
"Whatever," she said, rolling her eyes.
Greg looked at them. "How was the… whatever thing you were doing?"
Blaise, Theo, Pansy and Draco groaned.
"It was so boring. Don't worry, you didn't miss out on anything."
"That certain death thing? All bark and no bite. We just walked right in and out."
"Honestly? Very not worth it. It just made us even more frustrated than before."
"I know right? And in the end, all that stuff was a waste of time. There even wasn't anything valuable in the end, only a stupid mirror and that weird rock, but how important could they be?"
How indeed, they all wondered. After all, if they were worth something, the obstacles would have been impenetrable or, at the very least, harder.
Obviously.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Months later, as Blaise and Theo sat doing Potion's homework while Pansy and Draco read something or another and Greg and Vince were halfway through a Charms' assignment, the doors burst open.
"You guys won't believe what just happened!" Said Daphne bargin in.
Everyone looked up at her.
"What is it?" Asked Pansy.
"Harry Potter just got sent to the infirmary. Turns out Quirrell died after trying to kill him."
"What?" Asked Theo sputtering.
"Yeah! Also, the deal with the Third Floor? It was because of the Philosopher's Stone. It's super rare and super valuable. Apparently Quirrell tried to steal it. Crazy, right?"
"Very… rare?" Said Blaise slowly.
"Very valuable…" repeated Pansy flatly.
"Uhum. There is only one in the whole magical world, no one else knows how to do it."
"Only one…" whispered Theo in shock, "in the whole world."
"Crazy right? Can you imagine having something that powerful in your possession? I would like to put on display for everyone to drool over it, but it would be a security risk. Honestly, the thing should be on a pedestal."
"On a pedestal," whispered Draco.
As one, Theo, Draco, Pansy and Blaise turned to look at Draco's table, where a dusty red stone sat atop a bunch of papers.
Daphne looked at them confusedly.
"Are you guys feeling okay?"
"Unlocked door," whispered Blaise horrified.
"Puppy," whispered Theo in despair.
"Homework," said Draco and Pansy at the same time.
Daphne blinked and questioned her friends' sanity.
ʘ‿ʘ
"DRACO MALFOY, DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT YOU HAVE BEEN USING ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL ARTIFACTS IN HISTORY AS A PAPERWEIGHT FOR MONTHS?"
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